This guide is intended for use by school officials and child care providers responsible for the maintenance and/or safety of school and child care facilities including the drinking water. The purpose of this guide is to describe the importance of implementing best management practices for drinking water in schools and child care facilities and how a school or child care facility would go about implementing these practices. This guide is specifically designed for schools and child care facilities that have their own well and, therefore, are classified as a public water system. This guide is not a regulation itself, nor does it change or substitute for those provisions and regulations. Thus, it does not impose legally binding requirements on EPA, states, public water systems, schools or child care facilities. This guide does not confer legal rights or impose legal obligations upon any member of the public. While EPA has made every effort to ensure the accuracy of the information in this guide the obligations of the regulated community are determined by statutes, regulations or other legally binding requirements. In the event of a conflict between the information in this guide and any statues or regulation, this document would not be controlling.

Small communities violate federal requirements for safe drinking water as much as three times more often than cities. Yet these communities often cannot afford to improve their water service. Safe Water From Every Tap reviews the risks of violating drinking water standards and discusses options for improving water service in small communities. Included are detailed reviews of a wide range of technologies appropriate for treating drinking water in small communities. The book also presents a variety of institutional options for improving the management efficiency and financial stability of water systems.

When you open the tap to fill your glass with drinking water, you expect the water to be of good quality. But is the water from your tap really safe? The second edition of an industry-wide bestseller, The Drinking Water Handbook explains the many processes employed to make water safe to drink. Starting at the source, it evaluates the quality control of drinking water through treatment and distribution to the tap, and its use and reuse by the consumer. What’s in Your Glass of Water? Engaging and accessible, the handbook covers important concepts and regulations and identifies current problems with the water supply. In addition to the traditional physical, chemical, and microbiological parameters that affect water quality, it discusses trihalomethanes, Cryptosporidium, viruses, carcinogens, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs), and other pollutants. Solutions for Safer Drinking Water The book also addresses the challenges faced by practitioners striving to provide the best drinking water quality to the consumer. It outlines techniques and technologies for monitoring and water treatment, from preliminary screening to filtration and disinfection, as well as advanced processes for specialized water problems. Recognizing the importance of protecting water infrastructure, the authors include a comprehensive chapter on security requirements for waterworks. This user-friendly handbook puts technical information about drinking water in the hands of the general public, sanitary and public works engineers, public health administrators, water treatment operators, and students. Thoroughly updated to reflect current science and technologies, it takes a close look at what can be found in many tap water supplies and the measures taken to ensure the health and well-being of consumers. What’s New in this Edition Updates to every chapter, reflecting advances in the field Expanded material on sick water related to PPCPs Discussion of the latest treatment technologies Coverage of individual contaminants Current regulations related to drinking water

"America's Children and the Environment (ACE)" is EPA's report presenting data on children's environmental health. ACE brings together information from a variety of sources to provide national indicators in the following areas: Environments and Contaminants, Biomonitoring, and Health. Environments and Contaminants indicators describe conditions in the environment, such as levels of air pollution. Biomonitoring indicators include contaminants measured in the bodies of children and women of child-bearing age, such as children's blood lead levels. Health indicators report the rates at which selected health outcomes occur among U.S. children, such as the annual percentage of children who currently have asthma. Accompanying each indicator is text discussing the relevance of the issue to children's environmental health and describing the data used in preparing the indicator. Wherever possible, the indicators are based on data sources that are updated in a consistent manner, so that indicator values may be compared over time.

The Association of School and Curriculum Development (ASCD), one of the world’s largest education profession organizations and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention called for a “greater alignment between education and health to improve each child’s cognitive, physical, social and emotional development” (ASCD, 2014, p. 6). Lack of attention to the factors impacting learning can prevent students from reaching their full academic potential because education practitioners are failing to meet their students’ non-instructional needs (ASCD, n.d.). -- Nothing is more basic than water. Repeated studies have identified hydration as an important factor in learning (Bar-David, Urkin, & Kozminsky, 2005; Edmonds & Burford, 2009; Edmonds & Jeffes, 2009); yet according to Kenney, Gortmaker, and Cohen (2016), “access to clean, functioning free drinking water sources in schools may be limited, and compliance with state and federal policies to establish free drinking water access is low in many schools” (p. 28). -- Despite the mandate stating the provisions of the federal Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act of 2010 (HHFKA; United States Government Publishing Office, 2010), student access to clean drinking water remains limited in schools (Cradock, Wilking, Olliges, & Gortmaker, 2012; Jones, 2016; Kenney et al., 2016). Lack of or poor access to water could result in students not consuming enough to meet their daily needs (Patel & Hampton, 2011). This could yield a negative impact on student achievement (Bar-David et al., 2005; Fuchs, Luhrmann, & Simpson, 2016). -- The purpose of this cross-site case study was to examine the degree to which schools in a southeastern state school district are implementing the free, potable water subsection of HHFKA. Using a purposive sample, the researcher observed school food service practices in three middle schools and interviewed school and district food service managers. Constant-comparative analysis of interview transcripts and field notes (Glaser & Strauss, 1967) demonstrated wide variance of both knowledge and practice across sites and among interviewed participants. Implications for policymakers and practitioners include greater training of child nutrition professionals, school leaders, and classroom teachers.